We’ve been meaning to write about this for a long time at SEO Smooth! Back in 2022, SEO Smooth worked with Namebase and the Handshake community on a blockchain SEO project trying to decentralize DNS servers, which has many practical uses.
Handshake domain purchase (technically SLD purchase) was gated by NameBase.io, which was the community place used to register these domain names, and only certain browsers or plugins were needed to be able to view the names. For instance, this blockchain project would allow one to go to https://SEOSmooth (A “SLD”) and get to this website instead of https://SEOSmooth.com (.com being a “TLD”). There is much nonsense ICANN red tape involved due to security, (and HOSTS file defaults that ship with PCs and other internet devices); otherwise, the entire internet would be able to use and utilize this. Eventually later on, NameBase got purchased by NameCheap, a leader in Internet Domains that we are proud to use ourselves, and they set up Handshake/Namebase (HNS) names to be purchased directly on Namecheap, right under their main domains menu and normal TLD domain selections.
This was a great later-project news development, but there was issue a major SEO issue at hand far before them. NameBase actually was a name for other things randomly on the internet, even a name for a tool that the government had used for some name records. When one searched for “NameBase” in 2019-2021, these other things came up first on Google, and no one could identify or recognize Namebase as the leader for Handshake names.
We took this project on as a donation towards the community and the project back in 2021, and we got it so that Namebase would be able to be found as the #1 result on Google for, well, their own brand NameBase! To come up over others such as Namebase.com (a branding company) and an Wikipedia Article about “NameBase is a web-based cross-indexed database of names that focuses on individuals involved in the international intelligence community, U.S. foreign policy, crime, and business. The focus is on the post-World War II era and on left of center, conspiracy theory, and espionage activities up to 2008.”
Safe to say, these other entities had established themselves for the Google Search for “NameBase” for many decades prior to this blockchain project!
In fact, Namebase.com and this Wikipedia article quoted above show up below Namebase.io still today in 2025!
With some basic SEO 101, such as changing the title to “Namebase: TLD Registry + HNS Exchange for Decentralized Web” and the SEO Description to “Namebase is a secure and easy platform to interact with Handshake, a decentralized internet blockchain DNS for the decentralized web. Buy, sell, and manage top-level domains and HNS cryptocurrency.” – we were able to get Google to recognize NameBase.org as the #1 identifying brand for the Google Search “NameBase”
Additionally, the search result for Namebase now has functional sitelinks below it:
See the before SEO Smooth’s help search engine result link for Namebase below, with a BTC balance and other unoptimized navigational links, pardon the blurriness; it is an old screenshot that lost quality sometime after August 2021.
After SEO Smooth’s help – with nice full-site links of navigational and informative value:
SEO Smooth is always happy to help any crypto SEO or blockchain SEO project’s brand rank for what it should! Their own name!
